Any photos not otherwise credited are from the personal collection of Frank Passic, Albion Historian.

LIFE AT ALBION HIGH SCHOOL

Morning Star, November 15, 2015, pg. 6

As we approach the holiday season I’d like to remind my readers that I have just a few copies of my 1991 out-of-print book "A History of the Albion Public Schools" available. This scholarly hard-cover book lists the names of every graduate of Albion High School from 1878 to 1991. This is an excellent reference source and would make a nice gift for someone. Considering the current state of affairs with our school system, it would behoove you to obtain a copy now if you don’t have one already. Three of my other books, "Growing Up in Albion," "Albion in Review," and "Albion [Postcards]" are also available from yours truly at my house, or by mail. E-mail me at Albionfp@hotmail.com or call (517) 629-5402 for further information.

A big thank-you to all those who have supplied me with old Albion City directories, photographs, and Albion High School yearbooks over the past year. These help yours truly in the preparation of my articles and I know you enjoy the variety of topics I am able to cover as a result. I am now in need of yearbooks for my archives from the mid-1970s up to the last year they were issued. Not all classes had yearbooks in the later years for various reasons.

In looking through my Albion history archives, I find that there was one Albion High School class yearbook that was different from the others. The Class of 1941 came out with a most unique "Breeze Annual" yearbook, a distinction that was not matched by any other class. Instead of a traditional hardcover or regular size publication, this class published its yearbook in a format that was familiar to people. Life Magazine was a popular publication in the 1940s. It could be analogous to People Magazine today, containing numerous photographs of people and events of the time.

The 1941 yearbook was entitled "Life At Albion High School," and was printed in a large 14 x 10 ½" format, soft-cover magazine format to resemble a Life magazine. Its bright red cover made it very noticeable, and the photograph of the front of Washington Gardner High School with students on the steps brought it right home to Albion. The back cover was blank for autographs.

Unfortunately, due to its soft-cover magazine style format, copies of this yearbook did not survive as well as others. I’ve heard cases where people thought they were a magazine and so they were discarded. Others saw too much use and the front/back cover came torn from the three staples binding. The inside pages often came separated from the staples, too. As a result, copies of this yearbook are elusive today. As far as the content, the photographs of the Seniors were too small and the identifications were found at the bottom of the page in small print. Still, the group photos of the younger grades were all individually identified. The "magazine" did cover a variety of clubs and activities at the school, including athletic teams.

From our Historical Notebook this week we present the cover of the 1941 Albion High School "yearbook." How many of our readers remember seeing one of these?

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